Senator refuses to resign over remarks

Labor’s controversial new senator, unions leader
Joe Bullock
, is defying calls to resign, insisting that the Labor Party must stop chasing “lefty trends" while admitting he voted for the ­Australian Christians.

United Voice, the left-wing union that cut a deal to elevate Mr Bullock to the number one spot on the Senate ticket, on Thursday demanded he resign after anti-Labor comments he made at a Christian function last year surfaced on the eve of the election.

Mr Bullock, a right-wing powerbroker, told Perth’s 720 ABC program on Friday he was sorry for comments he made about the sexuality of Louise Pratt, who was relegated to second spot on Labor’s Senate ticket and is at risk of losing her seat.

“I can’t tell you how sorry I am about that," he said. “I was wrong to do that. It was beneath me. I made light of her relationship and I deeply regret that."

Yet he defended his call for Labor to stop chasing “lefty trends" and admitted he had not always voted for Labor, saying he sometimes voted for Australian Christians in the upper house while voting for Labor in the lower house.

He said this still delivered a vote to the Labor party.

Mr Bullock said he stood by the comments he made at a Christian function in November but that, had he known they would be put on the record, he would have modified his response.

“If I was speaking to a different audience and on the record I would have ­re-couched them," he said.

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He said he was happy to stand up for “old-fashioned values" and said Labor needed to start better representing the views of the ordinary worker, like the members of his Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association. Mr Bullock said if the Labor Party kept trying to compete with Green issues it would “fail electorally".

“It does not need to focus on every lefty trend," he said.

Labor, he said, should focus on the centre and not chase “progressive ­initiatives".

Asked what he had learnt from the controversy in the past week he said: “Always check when the microphone is on, that’s what it’s taught me."

Many Labor insiders blame Mr ­Bullock for its poor performance at last weekend’s West Australian Senate­ ­election.

Labor suffered a 5 percentage point swing against it and attracted just 21.8 per cent of the vote at the weekend’s federal Senate election rerun, triggered after the Australian Electoral Commission lost 1375 votes in the September ballot. While Mr Bullock is guaranteed a Senate seat, Senator Pratt is in doubt.

In an extraordinary move United Voice secretary Carolyn Smith called on Mr Bullock to resign on Thursday, blaming Mr Bullock’s attack on Ms Pratt and ALP members, who he described as “mad".

“The comments made by Mr Bullock were completely inexcusable," Ms Smith said on Thursday.

“In light of his recent comments, we no longer believe he is fit to represent the ALP in the Australian Senate."